What’s going on here!

What exactly is science fiction? We all know what the purists say: many of the greatest and most entertaining science fiction films ever made simply do not qualify.

Okay, so the science is lousy or non-existent. The situations are absurd. Nearly human robots shouldn't be making mechanical clunking and grinding noises when they think and spaceships shouldn't scream and whine in a vacuum. Two guys can't design a rocket for the moon and that mad scientist obviously doesn't know the basics of modern biology!

But we all know they're fun.

And in the end, isn't that what matters?

So grab the popcorn, settle back in the big, comfy easy chair and enjoy. After all, it has to be good...

But, Wait! There Will Be More!

Month: August 2018

There’s been an interesting trend in Indie SF lately. If you look at films like Yesterday Last Year, Lea: Light Engineering Android, Young Ones, Melocotones, or The Infinite Man, you will note that, despite their SF elements, they are primarily movies about people, and the science fiction is part of the human story. Naturally, the sort of people who […]

(aka Godzilla: Battle Mobile Breeding City Godzilla: The City Mechanized for the Final Battle) This is, of course, a sequel to last year’s Godzilla: Monster Planet, which was the first Godilla animated feature and a curious hybrid of a very familiar Anime conventions — the shipload of survivors on the run from a terrible menace, the […]

(aka, Mindwarp: An Infinity of Terror Planet of Horrors, Quest) This one was Roger Corman’s first attempt to make an Alien rip off. it would not be his last. But it is also one of the better ones. A hand-picked crew is sent on a rescue mission by the Master of their planet. A spaceship […]

(aka, Blue Steel) You know you are in trouble when a movie starts with almost fifteen minutes of: narration; the hero’s wordless daily routine; a dancing robot; and a board (i.e., “bored”) meeting; and random people in a car arguing, with just a quick break for the hero getting arrested and starting to explain his […]

This one has been a favorite of mine for a very long time. Now, I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for any movie with dinosaurs in it. But not all dinosaur movies are created equal: one can point at a few, incredibly expensive and incredibly awful examples, too terrible to be saved by their excellent […]

It seems almost impossible, and yet there it is: A movie, in the twenty-first Century, without a word of dialogue in its first hour. The silence of this film is almost painful. Early on, there is only the faintest hint of a score, and a sudden noise is enough to make the audience jump. We […]

I’m not quite sure what to make of this one. The first half hour or so more or less makes sense — and is actually reasonably well done for a very low budget film. At the eve of the millennium, a mysterious blonde woman and her daughter flee the mysterious group of commandos who are […]